My Boss Went to France
by domina tempore
Summary: After everything that Artie had been through in France - cramped flights, allergies, a pair of freelancing menaces - he was absolutely NOT leaving until the artifact was retrieved and in the right hands. Namely, his own. (x3 Xover with W13, White Collar, and Stargate: SG1. Part 1 in my Respectable Scoundrels series.)


**My Boss Went to France**

**Series: Respectable Scoundrels**

_Disclaimer: Warehouse 13, White Collar, and Stargate SG1 all belong to their respectful owners, I'm just borrowing. No copyright infringement intended! _

_Author's Note: First in my first REAL series ever, a massive crossover beast between Warehouse 13, White Collar, and Stargate SG1. (You can find the cover art on my livejournal)_

_As usual, IuvenesCor is responsible for this story (and by default, the rest of the series), and also has been a huge help with the editing. I don't remember her exact list of prompts that started it all, just that they were utterly random; but pulling together these three totally unrelated fandoms and making them WORK was one of the most fun and interesting writing challenges that I've ever been given. I hope that they do, indeed, work as well as I think they do._

_Notes about timelines etc. at the end._

ooo

There were monkeys.

Artie wasn't generally a violent person, as a rule; but there was a better than average chance that he was going to have to kill someone when he got back to the Warehouse (and that that someone would be Claudia). If he made it back. There were freaking _monkeys_!_ If Claudia has anything to do with this disaster, I swear_ –

"Well, would you look at that. Gorgeous."

There was always a chance that the dark-haired woman a few yards to Artie's left was talking about the monkeys (ha!), but it was much more likely that she was interested in the artifact that they were currently tossing around like a toy. Never mind the damage the monkeys could do with it; from the tone of the woman's accented voice, he could tell that the world would be in much more danger if she got her hands on it even for a moment. And after everything that Artie had gone through on this trip – the long, cramped flights, the bad food, the flower vendors and the bees, the runny-nosed sticky little children running around _everywhere_ (practically as terrible as the monkeys!) – he was not leaving here until that artifact was retrieved and in the right hands. Namely, his own.

He was still considering how he could get rid of this unexpected setback when a man with the same dark hair and sparkling blue eyes stepped up and slid an arm around her waist. "Lovely," he agreed in an American accent, at odds with her British one. That threw Artie, though just for a second. The pair of them could have been twins for all that they looked alike. Though, now that he thought about it, the way that he was touching her really wasn't very brother to sister; more man to woman. Pete to any woman.

They were both eyeing his artifact now, and both pretending not to as they pointed at various monkeys bouncing around in their habitat. No, not the monkeys. They were pointing at the various entrances and hatches that led into the enclosure. _Casing the place_. Much like he himself was doing.

If there was one thing that Artie hated on this job (besides monkeys), it was competition. Sighing, keeping up a mental grumble about how some fools didn't just know how to leave well enough alone and next time he was sending Myka and Pete and what had Claudia been _thinking_ begging him to retrieve an artifact in a freaking _zoo_ when he already lived in one as it was, he did his best to appear friendly and jovial and not-irritated as he approached the couple.

"...think the monkeys got the thing in the first place?" He heard the tail end of the woman's question as he stepped up to them. The man's answer might have been interesting, but before he could open his mouth Artie got their attention.

"Um, yes. Hello?"

The pair turned towards him, confusion crossing their features. "Can I help you?" the man asked quizzically.

Spur of the moment, Artie decided to play the conversation like he thought Claudia might. "Oh, thank God! Finally someone else who speaks English. I feel like a damned tourist, trying to get around in here."

The man and the woman exchanged a glance that Artie found impossible to read – he really did need to learn how to interpret this whole "couples interaction" thing if he was going to be forced back into field work – but it was gone almost as quickly, and they were both giving him slightly embarrassed grins. "I'm sorry to say we won't be of much help to you, then," the woman drawled. "I'm afraid we _are_ just a couple of "damned tourists". It's rather a funny story, really. You see, I thought that France was this gorgeous, romantic place..."

"...Which it is, but you really need to speak French to fully appreciate Paris," the man picked up smoothly. Too smoothly; while Artie might not be well versed in the language of couples, he definitely understood liars. "We've been wandering around the city since we got here, looking for something to do that didn't require us to speak the language. The zoo seemed to be our best shot."

" Yes, yes, Parc Zoologique is a great place for us non-natives to pretend we know what we're doing and have massive allergic reactions to the animals," Artie cut him off. He really didn't have time for their ridiculous sob-story right now. He needed that artifact, and he needed to get outof here! "Do you think that you could help me find my way out? We English-speakers have to stick together, right?"

Apparently, the bond of speaking English would only get him so far when he actually had work to do. The couple, very kindly and very quickly, helped him to find a park employee and instructed him in a broken mix of French and English to please see the kind gentleman to the exit. Then the bid him farewell and returned to their tour of the park, and most likely Artie's artifact.

Artie shook his guide off at the first opportunity, but by the time he made it back to the monkey habitat, the dirty creatures were calmly sitting on the rocks and grooming each other, his artifact was gone, and there was a Polaroid shot of the bright-eyed couple grinning brilliantly up at him from the informational plaque. Scrawled underneath were the words "_Happy hunting!_".

There was no curse appropriate to vent the frustration Artie could feel building up inside of him. Jamming the photo into his pocket, he stalked back towards the exit and hailed himself a taxi. He resolved to call Claudia and yell at her at the first opportunity, and then have her do one of those clever computer searches on the faces in the picture, _then_ threaten to fire her nine different ways before demanding that she relocate the artifact before anything _else_ went wrong.

ooo

The better part of Artie's afternoon had been spent in his hotel room, on the Farnsworth, alternately yelling at Claudia and anyone else who happened to be in the room at the time. The rest of them didn't seem to be particularly concerned, which only added to his irritation. This was serious, they should be taking him seriously! None of this patronizing "Oh, everything is going to turn out just fine, Artie" crap. He was supposed to be in charge! They were supposed to have a healthy fear of him, for goodness sake!

After several hours of getting nowhere on the couple, the artifact, or his frustration, Artie informed Claudia that he would be going out to dinner, and she had better have _something_ for him by the time that he got back, _or else_. Cheeky as ever, she'd smiled and saluted and told him not to get to drunk. Humph. As if. Though if there ever was a night that Artie would have liked to get drunk...

With this in the back of his mind as an alternative, Artie headed out into the city for one of his favorite little restaurants, a quiet little hole-in-the-wall place that was likely to be overlooked unless you were from Paris or had spent time there. He'd been coming whenever he was in town for years, and much of the staff had been there for nearly as long. He seated himself, ordered his usual and a glass of Bordeaux, and tried to relax.

That stupid, ridiculous couple! They were going to ruin everything. Not that they could possibly understand the true magnitude of the artifact's importance; they wouldn't have been so casual and obvious about stealing it and leaving him foolish notes about how they'd won (Artie got sidetracked on that again for a moment, tugging out the photo and studying the image for clues. He could discern nothing beyond what he'd seen at the zoo and Claudia had told him. Which was still nothing. With a frustrated grunt, he returned the photo to his pocket and forced his brain back on track. Artifact. Retrieval. Besting the crazy couple.). Their ignorance made it all the more imperative that Artie relieve them of their unfair acquisition and get it back to the Warehouse where it (and he) belonged.

His entire plan, of course, hinged on being able to find the couple and one small item in a city that they had probably fled hours ago. Artie groaned, took off his glasses to rub his eye. He was going to develop a twitch if he didn't resolve this soon. Or a brain aneurism.

"Your drink, Sir," the server said, placing a fluted glass on the table and pouring a meager serving. Far less than Artie felt he needed tonight, and for that matter less than he was accustomed to being served at this restaurant, period. Frowning, he looked up at the server with a scathing reprimand on the tip of his tongue.

It fell away when the sparkling blue eyes met his and gave a cheeky wink, and his brain computed the fact that there had been a very American accent coming from the man who was supposed to be a French server. He gaped, but recovered quickly. "You!" he hissed, jabbing a finger at the man's chest. "What are you doing here?"

The guy blinked. "I recommend you keep your voice down if you don't want to attract attention," he suggested innocently.

Oh, the nerve...! "I should be trying to attract attention!" Artie countered, though he lowered his volume considerably. "Like, police attention so that you can be arrested for theft."

"Theft of what? I am just a lowly server trying to do an honest day's work, no?" He said this bit in flawless French, and Artie was not overly shocked to know that his "poor, stupid American" act had been just that.

Another point against Artie's proposed course of action was the fact that he had no proof. And what exactly could he say had been stolen, anyways? Somehow, telling the cops that he'd been at the zoo and this man had wrongfully impersonated and idiot in order to steal a toy from the monkeys didn't seem like the wisest course of action. They'd probably throw him in the loony bin; God knew that he dealt with enough crazies back home willingly, but that would just been too much.

"What are you doing here?" he repeated, casting a glance around for the female accomplice. He half expected her to be hiding behind a menu at some other table, but she was nowhere to be seen. "Where's your lady friend? Or girlfriend, or wife, or sister, or whatever the hell she is?"

"It's complicated," the man dodged, waving a vague hand, "and she'll be joining us shortly. If you'll follow me..."

Artie balked. "Nope, sorry kid. Not walking into any stupid traps today. If you want to kill me or whatever you're planning, you're going to have to wait until I finish my dinner."

"Who said anything about killing?" The man looked truly affronted. "Believe me, Agent Nielsen; that is not what this is about."

"How do you know that name?"

"That's not important."

"I really think it is." Crossing his arms, Artie settled back into his seat and glared and the young man. "I am not moving one inch until you explain to me, to my satisfaction, what the hell is going on here!"

"We can't talk here," the kid insisted, glancing over his shoulder. "I've got some place a little more private set up. And I'd _really_ think before you tell me no flat-out. There are some things you should know."

"Has that line _ever_ worked for you before?"

He shrugged a shoulder. "Usually the people I'm trying to help aren't quite so pig-headed as you are."

"Pig-headed...?" He would show this joker pig-headed! "Okay, you know what? Fine. I've got nothing left to lose. You have what I want, so there's no reason for you to want to kill me..."

"I already told you, we're not killers."

"...so I might as well hear you out." Artie stood up and spread his hands. "Well? What are you waiting for? Lead the way."

Leaving the wine on the table, the kid gave a tiny, professional bow and shepherded Artie towards the back of the restaurant. Frowning, Artie fingered his Tesla as they walked – unhindered – through the kitchen and passed through an oak door. The kid closed and locked it behind them, and took the lead down a dimly-lit flight of stone steps. Artie shuddered. They probably weren't gonna kill him, but this was exactly the kind of place that he would hide a body if he had to. "Where are we going?" he grunted, stumbling his way down the steps behind his not-quite-kidnapper.

He glanced back, and his blue eyes looked mischievous in the dull light. "Wine cellar," he informed him. "They've got better stuff down there than the particular Bordeaux you ordered. As a matter of fact, I had a fantastic bottle once..."

"Okay, forget I asked." They made the rest of the trip down the stairs (a lot of stairs; how deep was this wine cellar?) in silence.

The room itself was impressively large when they reached it, though the effect was downplayed by the racks of bottles filling it to capacity. It was lit with the same dull, old-fashioned lighting that the stairway had been, and Artie got the impression that they'd put the lights in right after electricity had been invented and hadn't bothered to update them since. If he hadn't been so annoyed with this stupid man and his stupid secrecy, he might have actually enjoyed the atmosphere; it was almost like home.

"What would you like to drink?" the kid asked, going immediately to the nearest rack and perusing the bottles there. "They've got my favorite Chardonnay here, a good Merlot, Pino Gris –"

" I want you to tell me whatever you dragged me down here to tell me and get it over with. Honestly, do you _live_ on unnecessary theatrics?"

"Only on the weekends," the man's partner-in-crime stepped out from behind a different rack, grinning. Unlike the young man, she was dressed in street clothes. Her hands were moving restlessly, fiddling with something that might have been a bottle opener or an old-fashioned dirk. It was the only sign that she was not completely at ease. "Generally, the theatrics are more my department; but we make a pretty good business of it, don't we darling?" She winked. "Did the two of you have any trouble getting along?"

Artie opened his mouth, but the man cut him off. "He wasn't too thrilled with the idea of talking to me," he said with a shrug, selecting a bottle from the shelf and pouring three glasses before setting it on a small table by the stairway that Artie hadn't noticed when he came down. "He thinks that we stole from him."

"Well of course he does; we did play him rather good back at the zoo, didn't we?"

"True. But, to be fair, we knew about him first." He raised his glass in a mock-toast.

"Excuse me, _he_ is _right here_." Artie huffed, waving away the wine that the young man offered him.

The woman quickly relieved her friend of the glass that Artie had just refused. "Oh, just look at that," she giggled. "He is a grumpy old teddy-bear, isn't he?"

Artie bit back a variety of curses that he was _just_ to polite to say about a woman – at least to her face. He exercised further restraint by not pulling his Tesla on them and ending the conversation. They did still have his artifact, after all, and from the way they were going on they'd done this before. He was going to need at least one of them conscious to retrieve it from wherever they'd hidden it. "I am not a teddy-bear."

"You're adorable," she stressed with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"And the two of you are stalling," he shot back. "Now would you please explain to me what the _hell_ is going on? I really will report you to the authorities for kidnapping if you don't make this worth my valuable time."

There was yet another of those cryptic glances that Artie had come to hate, and when the man looked back at him he was quite serious. "We need your help."

Silence reigned for a full minute. "And you needed to steal my property and _kidnap_ me to tell me that?" And was Artie completely crazy for believing the guy?

"Well, we couldn't exactly walk up to you in the street and ask the man in charge of the Warehouse if he wouldn't mind helping a couple of...questionably employed folk retrieve an artifact that shouldn't exist, could we?" the woman snapped with just a hint of venom. "What would you have said to that?"

He probably would have had them committed to an insane asylum to keep his own cover, but he guessed that they both already knew that. "Well, you could have tried," he grunted, rubbing the back of his neck. "I suppose that there's no point in denying anything that you've said, but tell me this; how do you know who I am? You're certainly not recovery agents."

"We're freelancers," the man explained, taking over when she nodded at him. "We work on a case-by-case basis, and if we have to supplement our income in-between jobs with...other jobs, well, Mrs. Frederic doesn't ask questions, and neither do we."

"To be honest, we didn't realize who you were until after we ditched you at the zoo," the woman picked back up after draining her glass. "We just thought that we were doing a good deed, rescuing an artifact before some unsuspecting zookeeper got mauled by malicious primates."

"An artifact which I have yet to see," Artie reminded them pointedly. "Or weren't you going to give it to me once you realized who I was?"

There was much mumbling and neck-rubbing and shifting-of-eyes before he finally got a straight answer out of them. "We might have sold it to a museum..."

" ...which we had to do because we don't get paid until _after_ we deliver and we have travel expenses..."

"Oh yes, travel expenses like your taste for hats and expensive suits and wine?"

"And your fascination with French bakeries and shopping and any place where you can spend money?"

"You say that like we actually use _money_ with all of the shopping, darling."

Artie gave up and grabbed the remaining glass of wine, finishing it in one long gulp. _Never thought there would come a day when I missed Myka and Pete bickerin_g. "You _sold_ the artifact." he repeated when he'd swallowed, deciding to ignore the rest of their clearly illegal conversation for the time being. "To a museum."

"We're going to steal it back!" the woman protested, flicking a hand through her hair. "But we may or may not have learned about new security arrangements after we had already cased the place." She gave an innocent shrug and refilled her glass, almost hiding behind it.

"You're two professional thieves! You can't honestly expect me to believe that you didn't case the place _properly_ first."

The man looked insulted. "We did! But the museum authenticator took it home with him; we hit a slight snag when they wouldn't accept my credentials for the job because I'm not French."

"You're also not an authenticator."

"No, I can authenticate things just fine; I just generally don't _sell_ authentic things."

"Neal's a master forger," the woman said, leaning on his shoulder and pecking his cheek. "Not a bad date, either."

Artie rolled his eyes. _Couples_. Though now that he thought about it, he seemed to recall hearing Mrs. Frederic talk about hiring someone to replace the great works of art they stored in the Warehouse with convincing fakes. But surely she hadn't hired _this_ man for the job? "Well, isn't Neal a "master thief", too? What's stopping the two of you from sneaking into this guy's house and retrieving the thing yourselves? You've already made me look like an idiot over this whole mess."

"You have a set of Arthur Conan Doyle's lock-picks, don't you?" the kid – Neal, apparently – asked, raising an eyebrow. "I've been after Mrs. Frederic to borrow those for months, but she keeps saying that you need them more. Which makes no sense at all, because your team doesn't generally do the whole breaking-and-entering bit."

Artie still didn't understand. "You two are _thieves_. What does it matter if I give you the lock-picks or not?"

"I've been to the house before – it's a long story, there was a Raphael and I was young and bored – and I know from experience that there is no way to get into that house and out again without it being noticed. Believe me, if it were possible, I would have done it already. I am the best."

"That, and you have the replacement for this particular artifact, and we don't," the woman admitted with only a slight blush. Artie noticed that her glass was empty again, but she seemed no worse for the wear. "This was a rather spur-of-the-moment job."

They really were amateurs at the whole retrieval-agent thing. Artie was tempted to bang his head against the wall repeatedly, but was also determined that he was not going to leave France until he had that artifact in hand. With a sigh, and a silent prayer that he could keep from killing the pair, he faced them. "Alright, listen. I will help you if – and _only_ if – you follow my lead on this, and I get to bring the artifact back. There's no telling what havoc the two of you could cause if you got your hands on it again. Is that understood?"

Neal grinned, looking very much like the Cheshire cat. "Oh, absolutely."

"Yes, sir!" the woman said, snapping off a very military-looking salute.

_Damn, I hate amateurs._

ooo

Their ride to the house (which was more of a mansion) was mostly tolerable, once Artie got over his irritation at Neal for "borrowing" a car with which to get there. Neal and the woman – who Artie learned called herself "Vala" – seemed to grow at least part of a brain on the ride, because after a few minutes they stopped taunting him about how they'd tricked him at the zoo that morning and instead had begun discussing the lock-pick set that Neal wanted from Artie. It seemed that Vala had never heard of Arthur Conan Doyle before – though she did recognize Sherlock Holmes – and Neal and Artie had spent a good half an hour explaining the author and his particular and little-known quirks.

To his surprise, Artie found himself warming to the subject. "Not many people know this, but Arthur was _obsessed_ with accuracy in his writing He wanted to make sure that everything Holmes did was reasonable and not far-fetched, so he studied, or learned to do himself, many of the things that he told his characters to do. Among those things was picking locks, which also helped him out of a tight spot or two in his time. He donated his tools to the Warehouse when he died; you'd be surprised at how many artifacts he had by the end of his life. It was probably one of the biggest private collections in history."

"He sounds like my kind of man," Vala said approvingly, with a teasing glance at Neal.

The thief didn't miss a beat. "Yes, because law-abiding citizens are _so_ your type."

Vala had no response to this. Instead, she turned back to Artie and asked him what other artifacts had been in the man's collection.

Upon arrival at the dark estate, Neal hid the car, and they made their approach. There was a bit of an argument at the gate, where Artie maintained that he was neither as young or as tall as the two of them and could _not_ jump the gate, no matter how much they wanted him to. He finally resorted to drawing out the lock-picks, which had the gate opened in a matter of moments. The approach to the house was not difficult after that, and soon they were inside.

The interior of the mansion was practically a museum in and of itself, with paintings and old statues and pieces of art displayed prominently. Artie privately wondered how much of it was legally acquired, and he made a mental note to have Claudia look into other possible artifacts in the man's possession when he got back.

Once they had entered, Neal took over the lead, and Artie allowed it only because the thief had been here before. Instead, Artie occupied himself by pulling Vala away from shiny odds and ends that seemed to be trying to jump into her pockets ("I don't know how it got there, I swear!"), and being as quiet as possible. The whole house was dark and silent, and it would be just the pinnacle of idiocy if they had slipped seamlessly inside only get arrested because they made too much noise with their blundering. Artie would never live it down.

"Okay, this is his office," Neal whispered eventually, gesturing to a finely carved wooden door. "There's only one safe in the house, and it's in here. Artie, if you'd be so kind."

"What happened to "Agent Nielsen"?" Artie grumbled as he freed the set from his pocket again and crouched in front of the lock. "The others call me Artie. You don't."

"Well, I do pity whatever poor souls Mrs. Frederic has assigned to work with you," Vala muttered.

His back was to her, but Artie could practically hear her eyes rolling. "Yes, I'm sure that they pity each other too." The door clicked opened, and Artie straightened. "After you," he offered, waving a hand to usher them past.

In the office, Neal made short work of the safe. Artie was impressed when he refused the lock-picks for the task. He grudgingly admitted that maybe the two weren't as useless as he'd taken them for. Not that he'd admit it _to them_, of course; he made a show of hovering over Neal's right shoulder (Vala had taken the left one) and pointing out that he could have done it a lot faster if he didn't insist on showing off by doing it the traditional way. Neal simply smirked, and said that he preferred the challenge this way.

When the safe finally clicked opened, there were only three items inside. Artie pulled on purple gloves and tugged a foil bag from his pocket. Vala had also produced gloves from somewhere, and she snatched their wayward artifact and stuffed it into the bag. With a shower of sparks its power was diffused. Artie zipped the bag quickly and arranged the replacement in the safe. In moments, the deed was done.

It felt easy, a little _too_ easy, but Artie wasn't going to complain as long as they got out before the other shoe dropped. "Okay, let's go."

"Whoa!" The three of them spun around to come face-to-face with a grubby man in a long-sleeved gray t-shirt and ratty jeans. Artie aimed his Tesla, and he noted peripherally that Vala had a gun in her hand as well. Neal stood behind them holding the artifact. The new arrival held up his hands and backed away again. "Whoa!" he said again. "Relax, I'm not here to interrupt. But if I'm not mistaken, there is a damn fine piece of Spanish gold in that safe, and since you were nice enough to do the lock picking, I hope you won't mind if I...borrow it. For authentication." He frowned at Artie. "What sort of gun is that, anyways?"

"One that will cause you a beast of a hangover if you're lying to me." But he moved aside, nudging Vala and Neal over as well, and the man cautiously edged over to the safe and removed one of the two remaining (authentic) pieces inside. After a moment's consideration, he took the third piece as well, and gave them a sheepish grin. "For a rainy day," he explained.

"I had my eye on that one, actually," Vala murmured.

He glanced up at her hopefully. "You like it, really? Do you think that maybe my wife will appreciate it?"

Artie rolled his eyes. "My gosh, really?"

"What?"

He waved the Tesla towards the door. "Get out."

"Okay, fine." The grubby thief edged back across the room, stopping one more time to glance back. "Are you sure we've never met, sweetheart? I'll be damned if I don't recognize your accent from somewhere. Did we date once or something?"

"Out!" Artie repeated more forcefully.

"_Fine_!" He disappeared into the darkness of the hall.

Artie sighed in relief and pocketed the Tesla. "Come on, lets get out of here before something _else_ goes wrong with this day."

ooo

Artie parted ways with Neal and Vala at the airport, after relieving the two of them of his wallet (Neal) and his Tesla (Vala), at which they laughed and promised that they were going to give them back and were just trying to keep their skills sharp. "The two of you are ridiculous, do you know that?" Artie grumbled, secretly feeling rather fond of the pair. They certainly weren't Myka and Pete and Claudia, but they did have their own kind of charm if you could look past the blatant illegal activities and the constant tendency to attract trouble... Okay, so maybe they were a bit like Artie's crew.

Vala snapped off that military-perfect salute again. "Guilty as charged," she said proudly.

Neal grinned. "Yeah, she is pretty ridiculous, isn't she?" Vala slapped him in the arm. "Ow!"

"Don't make me regret our fake engagement so that we could get free samples from all of the best bakeries," she threatened him sternly, shaking a finger in his face and utterly failing to hide her own blinding smile

Artie covered his ears. "I heard nothing! Get away from me before I get blamed for whatever chaos the two of you have been running around causing!"

"Give our regards to Mrs. Frederic!" Neal called after him as Artie ran up the ramp into his plane. He settled into his seat and glanced out the window to see them waving at him, wearing those same irritating "_Happy Hunting_!" smiles from the Polaroid. Neal's arm was around Vala's shoulders, and they looked almost domestic and _normal_, which of course was ridiculous. They were cons through and through.

Thank God they weren't flying back to the States with him.

ooo

"Artie, welcome back!"

"Hey hey, Papa Bear! Glad you finally made it home!"

Artie accepted hugs from both Leena and Claudia, and collapsed into his desk chair. _Home sweet home_. "Why does everyone come up with these nonsensical bear-related nicknames for me? I look nothing like a bear!"

"Sure you don't." Claudia patted his cheek, and he swatted her hands away. "So, did you ever catch up with that mysterious couple? I'm still poking around trying to find out about them."

"Whatever you're doing with them, stop," he snapped, panicking at the thought of Claudia swapping stories with the two con-artist-thieves. "I want you to shut down all your searches, or whatever it is you do, and never think about those two again. Here." He shoved a package into Claudia's hands. "On second thought, go catalog that first and find a place for it, _then_ shut down all of your searches."

"So this is it?" Claudia studied the dingy white cloth and wrinkled her nose. "A dirty old sheet?"

"For your information, young lady, that flag caused the deaths of over three thousand soldiers when the enemy slaughtered them after their surrender. It very nearly caused a monkey massacre in France, and if I had left it to its own devices it could have been the cause of a third world war. It is _not_ a dirty old sheet."

Wide eyed, Claudia backed away, though she looked more weirded out than frightened. "O-_kay_," she said slowly. "I'm just gonna go find a place for this. Leena, you might want to take away the rest of his grumpy pills. You know, just for self-preservation"

"Claudia..."

"Alright, I'm going! Sheesh."

Leena laughed softly once Claudia was out of earshot. "So how was it, really?" she asked, touching his shoulder.

Artie grunted. "It was terrible. There were flowers and bees everywhere, and I was allergic to the monkeys, and those crazy blue eyed menaces _kidnapped_ me and tried to make me scale a wall – at my age!"

Leena raised an eyebrow. "Admit it, you've missed field work. And you liked them."

"I would rather have worked with Myka and Pete," he responded. "But...I admit, they had their moments. Still, I can't believe that Mrs. Frederic hires _criminals_ to work for the Warehouse!"

"She hired you, didn't she?"

Artie frowned at her. "Yes, but I'm not crazy."

"Whatever you say, Artie." Leena pressed her lips together and patted his shoulder one more time before moving away. "Whatever you say."

_fin._

_Note: There has been much tweaking and fudging of timelines to make this series happen. I've been planning this for a while, so it is all worked out, but for the purpose of this particular story, the only relevant bits are that Neal fled to Europe and was never in prison, and Vala had a falling-out with the team/US government post-series, which caused her to strike out on her own. As for Warehouse, this story probably happens early in season 2, timeline-wise._


End file.
